CLASSICAL MUSIC; Have Baton, Will Travel

By JAMES R. OESTREICH

Published: April 24, 2005

HE'S the hottest conductor you've never heard of.

When after the recent resignation of Riccardo Muti as music director of the Scala opera in Milan -- the Filarmonica Della Scala found itself without a conductor for its concerts of April 7 to 9, it turned to Arild Remmereit.

When Christoph von Dohnanyi canceled his performances here with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on April 15 to 17 because of illness, that ensemble, too, turned to Mr. Remmereit.

When Daniel Harding canceled his appearance with the Orchestre National de France in Paris because of illness last Thursday, the orchestra turned to well, you know. And Mr. Remmereit said he had been available for that assignment only because when an American agent asked whether he might be interested in substituting for Daniele Gatti at the Chicago Symphony during the same week, Mr Remmereit said no.

(At press time, the Paris concert was in jeopardy because of a strike by workers at Radio France, and Mr. Remmereit had been asked to be ready to rehearse yet another work, replacing Strauss's ''Alpine Symphony'' with Sibelius's Second.)

In music, as in most other pursuits, one person's misfortune can be another's opportunity. Many a podium career has been built on successful substitutions -- sometimes as little as a single unrehearsed performance, as when Leonard Bernstein replaced an indisposed Bruno Walter at the New York Philharmonic in a nationally broadcast concert in 1943. But more typically, the process is cumulative and measured.

In Mr. Remmereit's case, it seems a sort of spontaneous combustion. His only previous appearance in the United States was with the Madison Symphony in Wisconsin in 2003, and his only definite future American booking is also there, in October.

''He's quite a fantastic conductor,'' said Richard Mackey, the executive director of the Madison Symphony. ''He's exuberant but completely musical. And at the first rehearsal, he knew the name of every musician in our orchestra.''

But Mr. Remmereit is no longer Madison's little secret. If the sensation he created in Pittsburgh is any indication, he seems destined for big things, and soon.

Regarding his sudden change in stature, he spoke as if from afar. ''The snowball has reached such a size that it has started to roll,'' he said matter-of-factly, with no show of ego -- beyond, that is, what any conductor needs to survive. In fact he seemed a little dazed by it all, repeatedly speaking of the need to stay focused.

''It's terrifying when it happens,'' he said, ''but I can't tell you how na?ly happy I am when it goes well. These are such major steps that I wasn't even hoping for a few weeks ago.''

ARILD REMMEREIT (pronounced AHR-eeld REMM-uh-right, with the r's heavily rolled) was born in a village in Norway, between Bergen and Trondheim, and has lived in Vienna since 1987. Slim and fresh-faced at 43, he has had a busy but low-level career in Europe. He conducted the Residenz Orchestra of Vienna, which played mainly for tourists, from 1989 to 1992, and he was artistic director of the Ukrainian State Opera in Kharkov from 1992 to 1995. But substitute appearances with the Munich Philharmonic in January and the Vienna Symphony in February rapidly raised his profile.

So here he was, on April 15, conducting the Pittsburgh Symphony in place of Mr. Dohnanyi, whom orchestra members had been looking forward to working with for months, in a vintage Dohnanyi Germanic program, which some audience members had been looking forward to just as long. Of the three works scheduled -- Wagner's ''Siegfried Idyll,'' Schumann's Fourth Symphony and Brahms's Second Piano Concerto, with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist -- Mr. Remmereit had conducted only the Schumann before in concert.

At the start of both the morning rehearsal and the concert, he approached the podium like a diffident schoolboy. But once there he showed utter self-assurance, using clear and wide-ranging gestures, particularly in a breathtakingly dynamic reading of the Schumann.

The audience cheered lustily, and the orchestra showed its appreciation with shuffled feet. And although Mr. Ohlsson stole the end of the show not only with his concerto performance but also with a Chopin waltz as encore, the only thing listeners seemed to want to talk about afterward was Mr. Remmereit.

''Sensational'' was the word heard most frequently in a Talk-Back reception, a regular postconcert event that allows audience members to mingle with players and administrators. Mr. Remmereit radiated a joy in music-making, several listeners said. Inevitably, his boyish good looks, expressive podium manner and understated charisma were noted, but so was what some perceived as an unusual rapport between conductor and players.

The orchestra, which has had no music director since the departure of Mariss Jansons in 2003, recently cut short the search for a new one and is about to begin a ballyhooed three-year experiment in doing without, turning its fortunes over to three specialists: Andrew Davis, Marek Janowski and Yan Pascal Tortelier. But at the reception many proposed drafting Mr. Remmereit as music director at the end of that period -- if not before. He's a real find, they said, and of all the major American orchestras, Pittsburgh had him first.